You’ve decided to let out your property for short-term holiday rentals while you head for the sunshine, and the agency is sending over a photographer to do some spiffy pics. As a rent-virgin, you are not sure what to expect and perhaps a trifle uneasy about splashing photos of your intimate sanctuary all over the interwebs. However, the success of your rental, and therefore the exoticness of your own holiday, is in direct proportion to the attractiveness of your property, so how to you make the most out of what you’ve got? I’m a partner at posh London agency AccommodateLondon.com so I thought some practical guidance would be useful:

Q: By spooky coincidence, we booked your photographer to come on laundry day. Is it okay to leave the house festooned with knickers and damp tracksuit bottoms?
A: No. Unless you have booked a super-model to wear them, please hide all extraneous undergarments and clothing.

When she first saw this old, derelict textile factory in the centre of Barcelona, interior designer Cristina Rodriguez wasn’t even fazed – she knew that eventually it would be her home, and how right she was…

This was once a buzzing, thriving factory where people came to work day after day to produce fabrics and textiles. The huge space could have been daunting but, instead of feeling negative about it, Cristina plunged into a whirl of ideas and thoughts about how to make this vast area into various living zones without adding partitions or walls.

Mention their names among the growing number of foreigners who are making Marrakech their home, and they will inevitably be greeted with nods of recognition and smiles of friendship. For the Europeans who have settled in Marrakech are a close-knit bunch, united by shared appreciation of the Moroccan way of life. In their ten years in Morocco, the two designers have become regular fixtures of the Medina. But, if the locals have grown accustomed to Fabrizio and Alessandra, you cannot help but wonder what they would make of their creation; the Ministero del Gusto.